Fatal Transaction: A DCI MacBain Scottish Crime Thriller

by Oliver Davies

  “Broderick Smyth?” I called, my voice echoing eerily across the large, empty space. “This is DCI MacBain, Inverness police. Come out with your hands up!”

  Fletcher and I split up to cover more ground as the last, ringing echoes of my words gave up the ghost, the warehouse settling back into silence as if I’d never even spoken. There was no answer to my order, not even the sudden explosion of a startled bird coming out of the rafters.

  “Come on, Smyth. Don’t make this worse for yourself,” I yelled. “Come out and talk, and maybe we can cut a deal.”

  Fletcher found a set of metal stairs leading up to a second story that was mostly just a wide catwalk marching around the edges of the room, a couple of office doors set into the walls, and she slowly started up them, each footstep ringing dully through the warehouse. I stuck to the ground floor, slowly moving deeper and deeper into the large space. The warehouse wasn’t as empty as I’d initially thought. As I swept the beam of my torch across the floor, it landed on a bunch of old, metal equipment made out of a lot of twisted lines and convoluted devices. I couldn’t tell what any of it did, but it was all covered in a thick layer of dust and clearly hadn’t seen any use in a long, long time.

  The floor was coated in dust, too, and each step I took kicked it up into the air as a fine powder, tickling my throat and making me want to sneeze. I paused suddenly, staring down at the dirty cement. If Smyth was here, if he’d ever been here, then the floor would show me the truth. I just had to find his prints. I backtracked toward the front doors again. There’d been less dust on that part of the floor, no doubt blown away bit by bit as wind slipped through the cracks. As I retraced my steps, I noticed my own bootprints tracking through the dust, and after that, it wasn’t too hard to poke around and find a third set that wasn’t Fletcher’s or mine.

  Fletcher was still searching the upper level, so I followed the tracks by myself. They led in a nearly parallel path to the one I’d just been on, but after twenty yards or so, they angled sharply away into all the machinery that dotted the floor. I slowed down as I stepped into the narrow pathways between the hulking metal monsters since this was the perfect ground for an ambush.

  “Smyth?” I called again, straining my ears to hear past the echo of my own voice.

  This time, I caught the sound of rustling cloth and the muted clang of metal on metal. I immediately reoriented myself to head toward the noise since it didn’t seem to follow the path of the footprints on the ground. I crouched slightly and turned off my torch as I slunk forward, making sure my head was below the top of the machines, my ears working overtime to pick up on any more clues.

  The hairs on the back of my neck prickled, and on instinct, I leapt back, barely clearing the path of a large, metal pipe as it came whistling down right where I’d just been standing. Its end thudded against the cement floor with an awful crash, and as I caught my balance, I lashed out at it with one foot, hoping to knock it out of my attacker’s grip, but it pulled away at the last second, and I missed.

  I clicked my torch back on just as Broderick Smyth stepped forward into its light, his eyes wide and panicked. He definitely didn’t look to be in his right mind. There were lines etched deeply into his face, and his mouth was a pale slash within his skin, his whole form trembling, and he cried out as he was suddenly blinded, staggering away from me.

  “Put down the pipe,” I ordered, trying to sound both commanding and vaguely comforting at the same time, though those were not easy tones to blend together. If I could talk Smyth down without things turning violent, that would be great, but judging by his face, I didn’t think that was going to be the case.

  “You don’t want to do this, okay?” I continued as Smyth gripped his pipe tightly, eyes screwed shut as he stumbled back, away from the light. I stuffed the PAVA canister back into my pocket and pressed forward, hoping I could disarm him while he was still blinded and avoid a fight, but his eyes snapped open as soon as I was in range, and he swung his makeshift bat at me again, carving a vicious arc toward my face.

  Luckily, the narrow confines of the space between the machines prevented him from building up too much power or speed, so I was able to duck, cringing as the pipe smashed against the metal side of the machine beside me. Keeping low, I lunged at Smyth, ready to tackle him to the ground. I got my arms around his waist, and as he was still slightly off balance from the flash of light, the two of us tumbled to the ground. He hit with a grunt and an explosion of air, but he managed to keep hold of his pipe which he used to batter me in the head, the ribs, anywhere he could reach.

  I threw up a hand to block, glad he could get much leverage from his position beneath me, but as I did, he bucked his hips in just the right way, and his greater bulk threw me off him. I hit the floor with my shoulder and rolled, popping to my feet just outside the labyrinth of old machines. I expected Smyth to bolt, so I tensed to spring forward after him, but instead, he came at me, pipe swinging, and I had to quickly shift my weight and jump back, the whistle of the metal through the air unnervingly close to my ears.

  I dodged one swing, two swings, three swings, and as the fourth soared over my head, I snapped a hand out and caught it on its backswing, jerking it to a halt. Surprise flashed across Smyth’s face, and I gave the pipe a great yank, ripping it out of his hands and flinging it far, far behind me.

  “Smyth,” I said, raising my hands like I was speaking to a frightened dog or something. “Settle down, alright? We’re just here to talk.”

  Without his weapon to bolster his confidence, Smyth turned and bolted. I muttered a curse as I leapt after him, my overcoat flapping behind me.

  “Fletcher!” I yelled toward the ceiling since I didn’t know where she’d gotten to. “We’ve got a runner!”

  Smyth was surprisingly fast, given his bulk, and he’d clearly studied the warren of stored machines in the days he’d been hiding here because he was able to slip down the paths between them with ease, and I had to fight to stick close enough to him to figure out which new direction he would turn. I was pretty sure we weren’t far from one of the warehouse walls, and if Smyth was headed that way, then there was probably a door to the outside there. The wide-open spaces would probably work to my advantage in the chase, but I was also worried about a fresh, nasty surprise just past the door, so I churned my legs harder, a hand stretched out to catch the back of Smyth’s coat.

  He cut off to the right at the last second, and my hand closed on nothing but air. I growled, barely able to check my momentum in time to follow him. He gained a bit of ground on me, and as I ran, I looked around for any loose bit of machinery I could throw at him and knock him off balance, but everything seemed well and truly bolted down.

  Just before he reached the edge of the machine maze, something fell out of the sky just to his left. I barely had time to register Fletcher’s form before she landed the flap top of one of the machines with an almighty thud and then immediately jumped down to land on Smyth’s back, bearing him to the ground. She had too much momentum to stay on top of him when they hit the cement, so she rolled off him, and a second later, I was there, dropping to my knees with cuffs in hand. Smyth tried to rise, but I sat on his legs, and he flopped back to the ground while I grabbed his wrists and forced them behind him and into the cuffs.

  “Broderick Smyth, you’re under arrest on suspicion of aiding and abetting an assault and robbery, not to mention assaulting a police officer and resisting arrest,” I said as I snapped the second cuff into place. “You do not need to say anything but your name, address, date and place of birth, and your nationality.”

  Smyth had gone completely still beneath me, all the fight flooding out of him the moment the cold metal of the cuffs had touched his skin. I glanced up to check on Fletcher, who was sitting on the ground five feet away, a pained expression on her face.

  “You okay?” I asked her.

  “That was a mistake,” she groaned. “Oh, my poor knees. What the hell was I thinking on that one?”

&
nbsp; “It looked really cool if that’s any consolation,” I said.

  Fletcher grinned and winked. “I should certainly hope so.”

  I climbed off Smyth and hauled him to his feet. He came willingly, his head bowed, and his shoulders slumped, and I leaned him against one of the machines when Fletcher held out her hands for my help up. I grabbed her wrists and heaved, and Fletcher let out a long groan as her knees cracked like snapped gum.

  “Please stop me the next time I try to jump off anything,” she said, rubbing at her legs as she grimaced.

  “You didn’t break anything, did you?” I asked, worried she’d put herself out of commission with that stunt.

  She took a couple of test steps, and though she wobbled a little on the first two, her stride soon evened out. “Don’t think so. I’m just going to be sore for about a month. Man, I miss having the springy knees of a six-year-old.”

  “Amen to that,” I said as I took hold of Smyth’s arm. He had yet to look at either Fletcher or me, and his lips were pressed tightly shut, impassivity overtaking his face. “Let’s get this one back to the station and get ourselves some answers.”

  “And some paracetamol,” Fletcher added as she started toward the warehouse entrance, favouring her left knee slightly. I tugged Smyth along after her, my grip like a vice around his arm to be absolutely sure he didn’t get away from us again.

  Fourteen

  We made it back to the police station without any incidents, and I parked as close to the doors as I could get to be kind to Fletcher’s poor, battered knees. Smyth was stashed in my backseat, and I opened the door for him after I got out of the car, grabbing his arm to haul him out onto the pavement. He had yet to say a word and had spent the entire drive staring down at his lap.

  As we entered the station, Fletcher and I split up so she could grab some painkillers from her desk while I went to get Smyth booked in.

  “Do you want to call a lawyer?” I asked him as I led him down the hall afterwards, but he stayed silent, his eyes fixed on the ground before him. I shrugged and carried on, opening the door to the first interrogation room I came to and nudging him inside.

  I seated him in one of the chairs at the metal table and redid his bonds, so his hands were cuffed in front of him, then I plopped myself down in one of the other ones across the way, hooking an ankle over a knee as I leaned back.

  “We’ll wait for my partner to get here before we start,” I said, cocking my head to the side while I studied Smyth. His eyes flicked toward me once as I spoke and then went back to fixating on a spot on the table. He looked paler than the last time I’d seen him, and he hadn’t shaved since then, his stubble coming in thick and dark across his cheeks. I really, really hoped he wasn’t about to pull the silent act this entire time because we needed a win on this one.

  Fletcher slipped into the room a couple of minutes later and sat down in the chair beside me with a stifled groan, stretching her legs out to one side rather than bending her knees.

  “Great, we’re all here,” I said once she was settled, rapping my knuckles on top of the metal table. Smyth jumped at the sharp sound, his eyes locking on my hand as his breath hitched. “Is there anything you want to tell us, Mr Smyth?”

  Smyth finally met my gaze, and he shifted in his seat. He glanced at Fletcher, then the door, then shrugged, seemingly at a loss for words.

  “How about we start with what we already know?” I suggested. “Then you can fill in the blanks. How does that sound?”

  I paused to see if Smyth would say anything, and when he didn’t, I continued.

  “We know Carmichael and his crew bribed you to cut the security cameras and let them into the bank. That became pretty obvious when you bolted from the hospital. We know Barney Crane probably wasn’t supposed to be there and that his murder was a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. We don’t know where Carmichael is going next or how he plans on cleaning up the marked bills he’s got. We were hoping you could fill those parts in for us. You help us out, and we can probably cut a deal with you. You’re probably looking at some nasty jail time right now. We’ve got you aiding and abetting an assault and robbery, not to mention assaulting a police officer and resisting arrest. Am I missing anything, Fletcher?”

  “Maybe manslaughter?” Fletcher suggested helpfully. “Even if you didn’t kill Barney Crane yourself, Mr Smyth, your negligence definitely had a hand in his death.”

  “A very good point,” I agreed, my tone overly pleasant in an attempt to rattle Smyth even further. I smiled at him and clasped my hands together on top of the table. “Do yourself a favour and come clean.”

  Smyth sighed and screwed his eyes shut, his lips turning pale as he pressed them together. I could tell he was fighting with himself, separate streams of logic fighting for dominance, and in the end, he opened his eyes and nodded to me.

  “You’re right,” he admitted, each word fighting to stay locked in his mouth so that he had to force them free. “A man came to me two weeks ago. He didn’t tell me his name. He just said he had a business proposition for me.”

  “Tall man, long dark hair?” I asked. “Small scar on his cheekbone?”

  “Yes, that’s him,” Smyth confirmed. He shifted in his seat and moved his hands onto the table, then back down into his lap like he couldn’t decide which position was more comfortable or natural. “He offered me a deal. Fifty thousand pounds just to cut a couple of alarms and switch off a few cameras when he sent me the signal. He promised me no one would get hurt, that they’d go in while the bank was empty and be in and out like wraiths. He said that he’d done this sort of thing before and that no blame would fall on me.”

  “So you said yes,” I prompted when he fell silent, no doubt back in that conversation, wondering if he could have saved Crane’s life if he’d said no.

  Smyth nodded, and his throat bobbed as he swallowed. “Look, I like my job, but it doesn’t pay very much, and the benefits are practically non-existent. Fifty thousand pounds could make a huge difference in my life, in my sister’s life, so I couldn’t say no. And he said no one would get hurt!” Smyth’s voice tightened and rose in pitch as he struggled against his emotions, his hands clasping together so tightly that his fingernails dug into his skin. “I had no idea Mr Crane had stayed late that night, I swear. He didn’t tell me. Otherwise, I would have called the whole thing off. I promise I would have!”

  “I believe you,” I said softly, and the low tenor of my words forced Smyth to quiet. “Unfortunately, that doesn’t change the facts of what happened.”

  “I know,” Smyth murmured, his head drooping. “I know.”

  “What about Carmichael’s next move?” Fletcher asked. “Did he tell you anything about that or how he’s going to get the money to you?”

  “He said he’d transfer it into a new account for me,” Smyth explained. “He gave me the account numbers and everything.” His eyes widened suddenly, and he snapped his head up to look at us. “You don’t think he was just going to disappear and not pay me, was he?”

  “You didn’t ask for half upfront?” I said.

  Smyth pounded on his forehead with a loosely clasped fist. “No, I didn’t. God, I’m so stupid. He was going to scam me!”

  “Hard to say,” I told him, though I didn’t know why I was trying to reassure him. “He probably would have paid you to make sure you stayed quiet. But that doesn’t really matter. Did he say anything about where he’d be going next? Did he leave you any way to get in contact with him?”

  Smyth sniffled and wiped his nose on the back of his hand, his chest heaving as he took a couple of deep, steadying breaths. “He… he left me a phone number. In case there were any problems. I tried calling it after I left the hospital, but he didn’t pick up.”

  “A phone number. That’s good,” I said as I shot Fletcher a look. “We’ll need you to give that to us.”

  “Sure,” Smyth replied, and I took out my phone to create a new contact as he rattled off the
numbers to me. “Is that--? Does that help?” he asked once he was finished. “I really, really didn’t think anyone was going to get hurt, and I feel absolutely awful that Mr Crane…” He trailed off. His eyes darkened, and his whole posture slumped like he’d suddenly turned to putty. “I don’t think I want a deal. I’m the reason Mr Crane is dead. I deserve whatever’s coming to me.”

  I didn’t even try to tell him that it wasn’t his fault. In a way, it was, though it probably could still have happened even without his help.

  “I’ll send our boss in here to talk to you about the deal,” I said instead as I gathered myself and rose from the table. “Don’t decide anything until you’ve spoken with a lawyer and heard his terms.”

  “Alright,” Smyth murmured, and he sounded so absolutely exhausted that I almost felt a little sorry for him. Almost. I could understand where he was coming from, accepting the bribe, but that didn’t mean I had to approve of his actions.

  “Come on, Fletcher,” I said, and the two of us left the room together, leaving Smyth behind to stew in his own guilty juices.

  We made our way to Dunnel’s office next, and I rapped on the closed door, waiting until I heard his gruff “Enter” before I pushed it open and stepped into his room. Dunnel switched off his computer monitor as he looked at us, raising his eyebrow in a silent indication that we should get on with it.

  “We’ve got Broderick Smyth in interrogation,” I told him. “He needs a deal for the information he just gave us.”

  “Was it useful information?” Dunnel asked.

  “Maybe. He gave us a phone number for Carmichael,” I said. “We’ll have to see if it goes anywhere.”

  “I’ll speak with him,” Dunnel decided. “Lay out some terms and conditions for the deal, assuming, of course, that his information leads to the robbers’ arrests.”